I am feeling a little gloomy today. It must be the weather.
So I have not organized my comics in like eight or nine months. I have huge piles of comics in my house, towering stacks of twenty-two page booklets ready to topple onto me in some sort of shower of paper cuts. As I boarded, bagged, taped, shuffled and alphabetized I realized something. I realized that I am missing lots of comics I know I once owned. It is an occurrence that I think most of we comic collectors have experienced. Perhaps we lent an issue to a friend, perhaps our mother threw them out, or perhaps it has been a few months since we put away comics and we have some piles lying around the house and we have a cat with a spraying problem – ahem. Well, whatever caused you to lose a comic it is gone and that is a total bummer.
I once owned a copy of Marvel Super-Heroes #8. Not the cool 1960’s series of Marvel Super-Heroes, I am talking the 1990’s fifteen-issue bit. It is a pretty uneventful issue, Iron Man fights Dr. Doom, blah, blah, blah – oh wait – it is also the first appearance of Squirrel Girl. That is right, #8 is the first time Doreen Green came bounding onto the page. The first time she showed her knuckle blades and one big tooth. The first time we saw the utility belt full of mixed nuts. The first time Monkey Joe, her squirrel companion, ever popped up that cute head of his. I loved that comic.
Then some years ago I was going through my stuff and realized I had lost it. It still bums me out. It took me years to really get my act together when it came to taking care of my stuff so I have a million of these stories. The thumbtack I put through a sketch of Elfquest’s Cutter that I had done by Richard Pini when I was like ten or eleven. Which of course I ripped later on and then tossed in the garbage. It is a long list.
The thing is ever if I were able to get another copy of Marvel Super-Heroes #8 it wouldn’t be the same. Merely a replacement for something I had when I was younger, like a fifty-year-old man who gets the car of his teens because he misses it. So on this rainy day in our nation’s capital (it’s like the fourth day this week of rain) I ask you, our loyal Second Printers:
What Have You Lost and Not Found?
Go ahead, pull a chair and pour yourself a drink.
8 comments:
I had moved out to Pittsburgh (it's best not to ask why) and specifically refined my collection down to only the must-haves. The stories I would definitely want to reread.
I had a huge run of Uncanny and New Mutants through the Mutant Massacre, and Fall of the Mutants runs. The Magik, Kitty Pryde & Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and X-Men "Versus" miniserieses (XMen v. Avengers, FF and Alpha Flight).
I had my whole run of JLI, some Blue Beetle and Booster Golds, Morrison's Animal Man, Millenium, Legends, Crisis and a complete run of Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld (y'all can shut up about Amy Winston if you got something to say).
The creme de la... my collection. Only to be brutally robbed by some crackhead who would be sad to discover the collection really wasn't worth any scratch. But it was worth quite a lot to me.
As you say, I've replaced a fair number of those issues--Two of my best friends tracked down the Amethyst and Magik Limited series for me--But it's not the same.
They're not the issues I dogeared and creased and listened to Faith No More's Real Thing a billionty times to, y'know?
Still, I am glad to have them again. I think you should go get yourself some Squirell-Girl, man.
You owe it to her, if not yourself.
I had the early issues of the old Excalibur series, with the cross time caper, which is one of the best plot arcs ever. For some reason, I still have one issue from that run at my mom's house... that is all that remains...
Hmmm...I remember owning some issues of Scud and yet when my comics arrived in Los Gatos they were no where to be found...any idea where those might be?
I cannot find this autographed Wolverine issue by Joe Q. Wizard sent it to me and well... who really cares if I find it or not.
I have moved in the last 2 years. I also lend comics out to friends to read without making a little sticky note to remind me who has what.
I am currently missing:
1) My Watchmen trade
2) My Dark Knight Returns trade
3) The rampaging She-Huk story from the Avengers by Johns and Colins
4) Emerald Dawn mini
I know I will never get them back. Hopefully whoever has them is enjoying them
The wife and I just finished inventorying our collections, and quite frankly with upwards of 10,000 comics in the basement I can barely remember what I once had. The only blatant thing missing is my run of the Flash (the Baron/Messner-Loebs/Waid stuff which got loaned and unreturned... to whom, I dunno).
Shazam 31 (1970s) and Freedom Fighters 10 (also 1970s), lost somewhere in my youth. Truthfully, losing them made me idolize them over the years and think they must be much better than I found they were when I eventually replaced them in the early 00's.
G.I. Joe #21: The infamous "Silent Issue."
Had it and don't know what happened to it. I could buy it again but I think I'm actually happier with the memory.
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